The other lighthouse

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Kilian

Day 4 – Tuesday 29th of July – From Refugio Casa de Piedra to Cabo Higer (362km)

On Tuesday morning I woke up really early, at 6am, because I had to reach the other end of the Pyrenees that day and because that is the time everyone wakes up in a mountain hut if you do not want to miss breakfast. I looked out the window, which faced the gorge I had ridden up the previous day and which was also the route I was going to take today, and the weather was sunny.

However, once I had finished breakfast and I walked out the front door to get ready, I saw that it was raining and most hikers were sitting in the front porch waiting for the clouds to clear. It was sunny to the south, but right over our heads and the mountains behind us, there was a thick dark layer of clouds. My route was going to take me towards the sun, so I waited for a while for the rain to clear at least from the hut, I did not want to put on my rain gear only to have to remove it 10km later, but half an hour later the situation was exactly the same. Some hikers had donned their waterproof coats and risked it up the mountain, and not wanting to wait any longer I did the same and set off.

Sure enough, I did not even reach the main road before I left the rain behind and had to stop and put the rain suit back in the panniers. By the time I was on the A-136 to Sabiñánigo it was nice and sunny, the temperature rising quick, and I was looking forward to a great day of riding. In Sabiñánigo I turned west on the A-23, the only stretch of motorway on the whole journey and fortunately not a very long one, it was only built to Jaca, and after that city it was back to the main road which at this point run along the pilgrim route to Santiago for a while, and I saw some groups of pilgrims making their way there. In Puente de la Reina de Jaca I stopped to fill up and check the oil and tire pressures, and looking at the map decided that instead of going straight up to Ansó and Zuriza, I would take the valley to the right of that one, go to Hecho, and then take a road that crossed over to Ansó and another one to meet the NA-137 and then head to the French border.

It was clearly a wise decision, there were virtually no other cars on this route, and the views were stunning. The road went mostly thorough pine forests, and soon I was on the border between Aragón and Navarra, climbing higher and higher into the Pyrenees. The weather was still good, but temperatures had dropped sharply as I gained altitude, and I started to realise that I had made a serious error of judgment. When I left Barcelona, thinking that it was summer and temperatures were not going to be low, and wearing a good riding suit (it is not as if I was on a summer jacket and jeans), I had not taken the inner layer or the waterproof layer of the suit. I already had a rain cover to wear if the weather got nasty; I had also taken only summer gloves. For the first days this combination had been perfect, I had even been way too hot on the first day, and I had not been cold in the rain and the fog the day before, but as I was heading down towards the NA-137, it was getting colder than any previous day, and I was missing better clothes. Before I started to ride up the pass to France, I had to put on my rain cover, partly because it was getting cloudy ahead, but mainly to keep warm, and I had turned on the heating grips. My neck was also feeling the chilly wind, and I had to improvise and wrap a thin T-shirt around it.

The ride up to the Col de la Pierre St Martin was beautiful, but the low temperature, and the fog that clung to the top of the mountains spoiled it to the point that when I reached the French side I was starting to rethink my route. On the way down I stopped at the Col de Soudet, just a few kilometres down from the top, where the road split. Time to make a decision. I was absolutely freezing, and if I were to follow the route planned, it would take me a very long time to get to Hondarribia, as it zigzagged between France and Spain across a lot of passes. I thought about just taking a main road and getting there by mid-afternoon, but checking the map I saw that I was at the point of the trip that was further away from main routes. I decided to go on as planned to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and there I would make a decision whether to continue with the planned route or just cut straight to the coast.

Oh, and I can tell you it was the right decision without a doubt. Riding down from the pass I quickly left behind the cloud layer, the fog opened and in front of me lay one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen. It was the beginning of the best part of the day. I rode down a narrow valley surrounded of some scenery I had never seen before in the Pyrenees, it was just gorgeous, and it only got better and better. The tiny road I was on dropped sharply to meet the D26 at the bottom of the valley, where I stopped to check the map. As I was doing so, two girls riding Monkey Bikes with little trailers hitched to them rode by, and I saw that they had Dutch plates! I did not have the chance to talk to them, and I wonder what kind of trip they were doing (I could not find anything on a quick search of the net back home) but they were undoubtedly brave to have come so far on such bikes. I took the D26 south-west heading for Larrau. There, instead of crossing the Puerto de Larrau (I was saving that for later), I went west on the narrow D19 across the Col Bagargui, Col de Burdincurutcheta and Col d’Haltza and all the way down to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

This is the main starting point for pilgrims going to Santiago, so I expected it would be easy to find a shop selling hiking equipment where I could buy something decent to put around my neck. I did find a shop near the centre, but it was closed. It was midday, so I waited for a while hoping they had closed for lunch and it was not a bank holiday. Luckily, about 20 minutes later, a woman parked in front of it and opened the shop. I got a light neck warmer I went on my way.

I left Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the D918, which went along a river. At some points where the road came close to the water, I saw that there must have been very heavy rains in the past few days, as there were clear signs that the water lever had risen and at some points flooded the fields and even the road, and there were lots of ripped trees and branches strewn on the banks.

There were also some tracks running alongside the road, and a bit further down the road, a nice metal bridge took them across the river. I had seen that the electricity poles on the tracks were old and rusty, so I imagined that trains had not run on the line for a long time. Being a bit of a train geek, I stopped the bike under the bridge and climbed through some bushes to get to it and take some pictures. The rails were also rusty, which confirmed my suspicion that the line had been abandoned for some time, but some research I did much later, already back at home revealed two interesting facts: the flooding I had seen earlier was not so recent and the line had not been abandoned for as long as I had imagined. It was a line connecting Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Bayonne, and even though it had been de-electrified in 2010, diesel-electric trains used it until March 2014, only four months before, when the heavy rains that had caused the flooding also caused a landslide that closed the line. I was surprised to read that, because standing on the bridge, the whole structure looked really old and derelict, it was hard to imagine trains safely crossing it as little as four months earlier.

The road turned interesting again when, after reaching Cambo-les-Bains I turned south to head up the mountains, now rather hills, and the Puerto de Otxondo, where I found a very nice picnic area where I stopped for lunch.

The rest of the afternoon saw me riding to Elizondo to take the N-121B and then the N-121A, which would take me directly towards the end of my trip, but there were two more passes I wanted to see before getting there, so past Berrizaun I turned right and took the NA-4400 to cross the Puerto de Lizarreta, went down to Sare, rode around the town and turned back up heading to the Collado de Lizuniaga and down to meet the N-121A again.

It was a well-worth detour, and other than a couple of concrete mixing trucks that seemed to be going from nowhere to nowhere and spoiled the first few corners of the climb, the rest of it was wonderful.

The forest was so thick that I took very few pictures inside, as there was not much light.

Not long after rejoining teh N-121A I finally reached Hondarribia and having been there recently, rode straight through to Cabo Higer, where the lighthouse that marked the end of my trip was waiting for me. It had taken me five days and 1,347km.

Right next to the lighthouse and overlooking the ocean, there is a campsite with what must surely be some of the most stunning views I have enjoyed from my tent. I set camp next to a wooden fence on the edge of the cliff and watched the sun set as I had dinner.

Fog, lightning and Le Tour de France

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Kilian

Day 3 – Monday 28th of July – From Refugi de Conangles to Refugio Casa de Piedra (302km)

There were two dirt track variants to my main route that I had planned to do for the day before, but it had been such a long day that I had not had time to do the second one, another long arch to the north of Vielha starting in the village of Baguerge. The previous evening I had been planning the route and I thought I had time today, but the day was grey and the clouds threatened with rain, so I was not so sure about it. I had breakfast in the terrace and as I was getting everything packed and ready on the bike, a light drizzle started to fall.

I did not want to get out the rain suit, firstly because I was too lazy, and secondly because according to the weather service there was no rain on the other side of the tunnel, which is where I was headed. I got on the bike and rode fast towards the entrance of the tunnel, as the drizzle turned into more serious rain. On the other side there was no rain but it was still cloudy, so it was time to make a decision. Turn right and go back a few kilometers the way I had come the day before to take the dirt road and risk a downpour turning the track to nasty mud in the middle of nowhere, or turn left and go on with the rest of the route planned for that day, all on tarmac?

I had had great fun in the dirt the day before, and I wanted more. Unlike the tracks I had not found at the beginning of the journey, this area was further away from home, so I would not come back here some other day just to do that bit. On the other hand, I did not fancy having to deal with technical riding in the mud with a heavy bike, all by myself.

‘Man up, Kilian!’ I told myself. ‘You’ve got a beard, and a beard is not just something that grows on your face, you have to earn it!’ So as you can see, I made the sensible decision and headed for the dirt track.

By the time I reached Baguergue, the village where the tarmac ended, it was damp foggy higher up in the mountain, but there was no rain yet. I rode across the village and found a very good unpaved road along the right bank of a river. Past some farmhouses, a small bridge cut across the river and the road turned narrower, steeper, and rocky as it started climbing closer and closer to the fog in a series of tight hairpins, and I had to stand on the bike to negotiate some trickier sections. There was a lot of water coming down the mountain in streams and small waterfalls, and I had to ride across several parts where the streams flowed across the road.

The steep climb turned to a gentle incline that disappeared into the fog further ahead, and I stopped to have one last look behind me – from where I was standing I had a stunning view of the lush green valley below. It had been well worth coming this way.

I rode on, and what had been light fog turned thicker and thicker in a matter of minutes, and soon I had completely lost sight of the valley below and the pass ahead. Then a few drops of rain started to fall, and seeing that the weather was definitely not going to improve this time, I looked for a place to stop by the road to take out the rain suit. As I did, it started to pour down, and while I was struggling to get on the suit, there was a flash of light and a deafening thunder. A bolt of lightning had struck somewhere in the fog, and judging from the delay between lightning and thunder, which was virtually non-existent, I guessed it must have been really damn close. I had no idea how far from the top I was, but I feared I was probably there already, and then I realized that I was wet and standing next to over 200kg of the only metallic thing up there. I had never put on the rain suit so fast in my life and I swear that record is going to stick for a long time. I jumped on the bike and got the hell out of there hoping that the road down was not far ahead.

By now the track was soaking wet, but fortunately it was quite rocky, not the mud I had been fearing, and to my immense relief, the road started to go down almost immediately. I did hear some more thunder, but it did not sound anywhere near as close as the first one, so I imagined the storm was on the other side of the mountain. On this side my problem now was fog – it had turned so thick that I could only see a few meters ahead of me, so I had to slow down to almost a crawl.

I had just negotiated a couple of hairpins when I thought I heard something ahead. I had seen an old pickup truck parked some way behind which probably belonged to a shepherd or a hunter, and I thought another one might be coming up the road, so I slowed down even more and tried to make something out in the fog. Suddenly, a bulking yellow monster appeared in front of me. A backhoe was planted in the middle of the track digging a draining ditch, and it had made a pile of earth half a meter high right across the road. I stopped, glad I had been as slow as the bike would go without stalling. Funny how the fog distorts perception, especially sound. The guy pushed some rocks and earth down the mountain to make room for me to ride through, and I nervously made my way over irregular soggy earth and a drop to a stream below. I thanked him and went on my way down, thinking that had I been on a 4×4, that would have meant turning back the way I had come. (It would have also meant that I would have been dry, warm and not worrying about lightning, but hey, where is the fun in that?)

A while later the track led me to a small bridge across a gushing river and then it leveled out until I saw a mountain hut and the tarmac started again. The road led me into a thick forest, and the combination of lush green vegetation, the rain and a valley that became very narrow and deep at a point made me think of the infamous Yuncas Road in Bolivia. Now, that is something that must be interesting to ride…

Back on the main road, I only did a few kilometers before turning left to exit Catalonia to the west via the Col du Portillon, the first of a series of legendary passes on the French side of the Pyrenees. The rain had stopped, and even though it was still a bit cloudy I took the rain suit off, but the fog was still there, sometime thinner sometimes thicker, but always enough for the sun to be completely hidden and for me to have no idea whether I was facing north, south, east or west. It is really a shame, for even though I really enjoyed the roads themselves from this point on, I can not say the same about the views.

From the Col du Portillon the route continued through the Col de Peyresourde and down to Arreau, but instead of going all the way there, I cut through some backroads between Bordères-Louron and Ancizan, as I wanted to take the D113 and ride up the Hourquette d’Ancizan rather than the Col d’Aspin. When I reached the top I found a couple of brave cyclists emulating their Tour de France idols and a cow and the optimist in me thought that if I could not enjoy the views, at least the bad weather had kept most cyclists at home, allowing me to enjoy the road. I took a picture of them, the cow, and my bike (no pedals on that one).

Down to the valley again, and the fog finally cleared, even though the clouds did not. At least that would give me the chance to admire the views from the top of THE pass – the Col du Tourmalet.

I know I am on a motorbike and I have no right to say this, but approaching the Tourmalet from the east (even though the fog and the clouds had me convinced that I was heading north) it did not seem to be all that hard, nor pretty, from that matter. There were some ski slopes that were closed and had that sad air that these places have in summer, only made worse by the fact that the weather was wintery, the road cut across a small town with some closed ski rental shops and a few corners later, voilà, the top. I rode past a statue depicting a naked guy riding a bike (must have been some kind of ancient Greek Olympic cyclist) and looked for a spot to park the bike and have a rest. I saw one next to two other bikes overlooking the other side of the past, parked there and then I saw it. The other side of the Tourmalet was simply spectacular. A vast valley with a narrow, steep, twisting road that seemed to be the Southern European version of the Stelvio and the Transfagarasan. No wonder it was hard cycling up from that side!¹

I had a blast on the way down to Luz-Saint-Sauveur, which was a very beautiful town, and up north into the Gorge de Luz (I had got my bearings now and I knew I was going north). Some kilometers later, the road took a turning west again in Argelès-Gazost and just as it happened with the Stelvio, which in my own humble opinion lost its “Best Road in the Wooooorld” crown to the Transfagarasan, what awaited ahead was going to steal the Tourmalet’s crown as my favorite mountain pass in this area – the combination Col du Soulor/Col d’Aubisque.

I must confess that it may well be that the weather had improved and maybe, just maybe, that affected my perception of the ride, but these two passes were just fantastic. I stopped on top of the second one and while I was having a snack I saw a German guy pull up on a KTM 990 Adventure. As you may now, I have a soft spot for that bike, so naturally, I went over to have a chat. His English was a bit limited, but apparently he had been in the Canary Islands, ferried to Africa and was on his way back home now. I asked him what he thought of the bike as a long distance touring machine, as it eats fuel and rear tires at a frightening pace, and he looked at me and with a huge smile on his face he said ‘vest vike I’f everrr had!”

The road on the other side of the pass was just as spectacular as the way up – a few corners leading to narrow line cut in a near vertical wall. Amazing.

The last big town I rode through on the French side was Laruns, and from there I followed the stunning Vallée d’Osseau up to the Col de Portalet, where I stopped to decided what to do for the rest of the day. It was still cloudy, so I could not see the Midi d’Osseau, a spectacular peak that my father took me and my sister to when we were kids. Happy memories!

It was not very late, but I was cold and the weather on the Spanish side of the border looked worse, so I decided to call it a day and spend the night in another mountain hut instead of a campsite. There was a very nice one at the end of a beautiful gorge not far down the valley called Casa de Piedra, so I headed there and booked a bed and for the first time since I started, a full meal for dinner.

It did not rain anymore that afternoon, so I just sat at a table in the terrace in front of the hut and enjoyed a couple of beers while planning the following day. Dinner was plentiful and delicious, and we had a couple of bottles of red wine to share among the six people sitting at my table. I met a couple of German guys and a Catalan one who were walking the GR-11 path, all the way from one end of the Pyrenees to the other, kind of like what I was doing on the motorbike but a bit longer. The Catalan one was planning on doing it all in one go, about 40 days, while the Germans had split it over several holidays and were on an 8-day journey in their second year. I had a great time and enjoyed the company over dinner, we stayed up until late and had some more beer, which would turn out to be not such a great idea the following morning…

(1) I actually have no idea which side the Tourmalet is climbed from on the Tour, or even if it is still part of it… sorry for any inaccuracies

Tor, the cursed mountain

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Kilian

Day 2 – Sunday 27^th of July – Saillagouse to Refugi de Conangles (203km)

I woke up with the first rays of sunshine a long while before the time I had set in my alarm clock, and a bright morning and clear blue sky greeted me when I crawled out of the tent, announcing a great riding day ahead.

I was very excited about the route I had planned for several reasons: I was looking forward to two very nice mountain passes – Col de Puymorens and Pas de la Casa/Port d’Envalira on my way to Andorra, but most interestingly, on my way out of Andorra I had decided not to take the main road south to La Seu d’Urgell, but to leave the country via the only other way a vehicle can cross to Catalunya – the Port de Cabús, a road that led to a badly maintained dirt track down the mountain and through the infamous village of Tor.

I left Saillagouse and rode leisurely towards the border enjoying the landscape. I already knew this area well as I had been here countless times before both for hiking and for skiing, but for those who have never been in the French Cerdanya, it is a place I recommend, especially in spring-summer on a motorbike. There are lots of small mountain roads to explore and the views are stunning. In addition, the fact that there are no big cities near the region on the French side has kept tourist numbers reasonably low here, and villages still maintain that unmistakeable Gallic look in most places, with their quaint houses and corner shops unlike the Catalan side, where thousands of apartments have been build everywhere for holidaymakers coming from Barcelona and Girona, which are much closer to the Pyrenees.

I turned right in Bourg-Madame, just before the crossing into Puigcerdà, and rode along the border to Latour-de-Carol, which can be reached from Catalonia via a railway that penetrates French territory for a few kilometres, and where passengers can change trains and get on Le Petit Train Jaune, a tourist panoramic railway that winds its way all across the region to Villefranche-de-Conflent. Past the village I stopped to take a few pictures of the medieval towers that give the village its name and then started riding up the Col de Puymorens.

This pass is 1,920m high and it overlooks the ski slopes, which were now closed and looked a bit decadent compared to the winter season, when they are in full activity. The pass is far from the ones in Switzerland, the top is reached after only a few hairpins, but the great views more than make up for that. At the top there were a few other motorbikes and a bus full of foreign cyclists waiting for their bicycles to arrive in a van, so I took some pictures and left before they swarmed he road.

After a short descent into a deep valley where the road splits north towards France and south towards Andorra, I started gaining altitude again, this time heading for Pas de la Casa. There were a lot more motorbikes on the road now, and as I was nearing the town of Pas de la Casa, already in Andorra, I saw a fair number of tourist coaches as well. I decided not to stop at the petrol station there, as there were long queues of French cars filling up with cheaper petrol before crossing back into their country, and instead continued to climb towards the top of Port d’Envalira, to find quieter petrol station where I filled up next to a group of three German bikers (riding GSs, of course).

It was getting a bit cold (I was at 2,408m now) but I decided to wait a bit before putting on more clothes – I was going back now into Andorra now and the sun was climbing higher in the sky, so temperatures were bound to rise.

The way down was also very interesting, and in a short while I had left behind the ski slopes and was riding into bigger towns. It is always interesting to see the contrast between summer and winter in Andorra. It is a small country and there is only one main road cutting across it as there is no room to build another one, the towns expand up the slopes and new buildings are feats of vertical engineering that cling to the steep sides of the valley. This means that during the ski season thousands of people have to drive through these towns to get to the slopes, and the whole country turns into a nightmarish traffic jam. Visit in the off-season, however, and you’ll find the time to appreciate what a beautiful place it is.

I left the main road when I reached Canillo and took a steep road that took me away from the main valley. Now, that main valley is the only thing that most people ever get to know in Andorra, and believe me, they have no idea what they are missing. Take any road up and out of there, and you will be rewarded with some of the most impressive mountain landscapes in the Pyrenees, and a lot less people too.

It was not the case this time, though, as I kept finding a lot of cars on the pass from Canillo to La Massana, and as I was wondering why that could be as there are normally some hikers in this area, but far from that many, I ran into the answer: they were holding one of the famous sheep dog competitions in a field by the road.

The rest of the road to la Massana was quiet, and from there I rode up to Pal and to Coll de la Botella and Port de Cabús. This last bit of road was a dream – high above the country, with panoramic views and very little traffic other than the odd cyclist that was brave enough to tackle the formidable ascent to 2,300m.

The reason that there is virtually no traffic on this road becomes clear once you reach the top: the road leads nowhere. Most people coming up here might wonder why would the Andorrans spend so much money building a road this high for nothing, but I knew the answer, and it was the reason I was here. Allow me to take a break from my ride report to tell you the story of the village of Tor.

The tiny village of Tor lays on the Catalan side of the mountains and it is one of the most isolated places in the country, only accessible through a long dirt track from Alins, which in turn is connected to Llavorsí via a narrow one-lane country road through a deep gorge, it is cut off the rest of the world by snow most of the winter. At the end of the 1800s, thirteen families lived there, and in 1896, they signed a document establishing a community of co-owners of the mountain where the village is located, which extends to the border with Andorra. It was this strategic location that would prove to be a curse to its inhabitants.

During the 40s, the isolated location of the village made it a good place for maquis to hide, and in 1944, a confrontation between some maquis and the Guardia Civil ended up with three houses being burned down. It seems that there were some accusation in the village as to who had tipped the police of the presence of maquis and who was harbouring them, and this was the beginning of a long-standing feud between two families that was fuelled over decades by isolation and ambition.

The three families whose houses had been destroyed left the village, and the harsh winter and living conditions (there was no electricity, telephone or running water) led to a small exodus over the decades which meant the by the 70s there were few people who still lived in the town all year round.

The document that established the co-ownership of the mountain stated that the inhabitants of the village were those in whose houses there was a fire in the hearth all year round, which meant that the few people left in the village regarded themselves as the only legitimate owners. By this time, two men – Josep Montané, ‘Sansa’ and Jordi Riba, ‘El Palanca’ – were in bitter confrontation over the use of the mountain. Both of them had build dirt roads up the mountain to connect with Andorra, and they were making a big profit with smuggling. There was (and still is) only one road connecting Andorra to Catalonia which meant smugglers had to resort to walking across the mountains or using mules, so having a dirt road on which 4×4 trucks could drive was of great benefit to them. Sansa and El Palanca blocked and controlled access to their roads and demanded money, goods or vehicles in exchange.

Their feud continued, and the fight over ownership of the mountain and the isolation they lived in made them grow paranoid of each other. Both to ‘protect’ themselves and to make sure that their properties were always occupied (and thus securing ownership under the provisions of the ancient law), they surrounded themselves of shady characters that had found in the village a way to escape their past. Sansa set up a kind of hippie camp on his land, and El Palanca hired two gypsies as bodyguards.

By the end of the decade Sansa, seeing the development of tourism on the other side of the border and having been repeatedly and insistently contacted by several developers, had grown more ambitious and started envisioning building a winter resort in the mountain. Sansa was contacted by an Andorran lawyer and developer with a background in doubtful activities (brothels, strip clubs, smuggling…) who put him in touch with British investors and convinced him and three other of the original owners to sign a 99-year lease on the mountain. The rest of the co-owners, and especially El Palanca, who wanted to protect his interests in the mountain, were fiercely opposed to the project, and the situation degenerated quickly. The project stalled for a while, as the investors were wary of the community of co-owners and wanted to clarify the legal situation of the land, and at some point during this time, the paved road was build from the Andorran side to the border, probably with hopes that the winter resort would be built (and making the smugglers’ life easier).

The situation had grown so tense that when the lawyer visited Tor to arrange paperwork with Sansa, he too was accompanied by bodyguards, a couple of retired policemen. It was during one of those visits when they run into El Palanca and his two gypsies, and a heated argument started. Both parties carried guns, and in the confrontation that ensued, the two ex-policemen shot the two gypsies dead. They were later arrested and sentenced to 8 years in prison.

At the beginning of the 80s, the remaining inhabitants started a legal battle for the ownership of the mountain that dragged on for years, putting off the potential investors and an end to the winter resort project. El Palanca and Sansa continued extorting money from the smugglers until 1995, when the Court made a decision and awarded ownership of the mountain to Sansa, on the basis that he was the only real all-year resident in the village. His victory was short-lived, though. Five months later he was found dead in his house.

At first, fingers pointed to the hippies he put up in his ‘Camp Sansa’, but shortly after an eyewitness, Antonio Gil, accused Josep Mont and Merli Pinto a pair of smugglers to whom Sansa allegedly owed money. They were arrested, but later on the judge dismissed Gil’s account on the basis that he had psychological problems and there were several contradictions on his declaration. Mont and Pinto walked free and the case is still unsolved today.

In 2002 and then in 2005, the Court determined that the ownership of the mountain belonged to the heirs of all 13 original families, ending a long bloody conflict. El Palanca still lives in the village, although not all year round, and still exploits the woods in the mountain and breeds horses, and both roads up to Andorra are still open and presumably kept in good condition by him.

TV3 broadcasted a documentary about this story and Carles Porta, the journalist who made it, became so fascinated that he ended up writing a book.

I wanted to do some forest roads, and the story of the town fascinated me, so after having lunch by a fountain on the way up to Port de Cabús, I found myself looking down a rutted rocky track where the road ended, marked by a sign that, having read the story, was a bit intimidating.

(The owners of the Mountain of Tor are not responsible for any physical and/or material damage that may occur to people transiting inside the property and private track)

The ride down the road was difficult, and I made slow progress to make sure I did not drop the bike, as I was all alone and it would have been hard to pick up, and stopped from time to time to take some pictures. The valley was gorgeous, an unspoilt haven in the heart of the Pyrenees that thanks to its dark history has escaped ambitious development, which I guess is a good thing despite the high price that was paid for it.

The first part of the descent was quite steep, with a few hairpins going into the forest, and after a while a reached a plateau where the road split in two: the one on the left belonged to El Palanca, the one on the right to Sansa. I knew that they became one again near Tor, and the left one had a river crossing if I remembered correctly what I had read, so I took the right one, and a little further down the road a found a surprise waiting for me: the remains of the camp where Sansa put up his hippies; because of its difficult access and its background, hardly anyone ventures into the valley, so it was still almost intact. I stopped the bike, crossed a small stream and wandered among the remains of huts and tents, trying to imagine what life had been like and what kind of people had lived there.

Just before the two roads met again I saw some abandoned farms that presumably belonged to Sansa as well, since he was known to ask the smugglers for Land Rovers and then drive them until they broke down and abandon them there and then, and there were some littering the fields in front of the farm.

The roads meet at a bridge and shortly after I arrived in the village, which was little more than three houses and a church.

Some houses were taken care of and there was people (it was summer) and as I rode through the town I was excited to spot El Palanca in the garden of one of them playing with some kids, probably grandchildren, and across the street, sitting with a few other man in front of an improvised bar, Lázaro Moreno a thug El Palanca had hired as a farmhand and who had ended up marrying one of the heirs in the village.

After leaving Tor behind, the road remained unpaved and in bad condition for a while, in fact a normal car would have difficulty trying to reach the village (I read a story about a group of students who ripped of the sump of a rental car trying to get there, and the only cars in the village where true 4x4s, not SUVs). Upon reaching the village of Alins, tarmac begins, but it is still a very narrow road that nobody clears in winter all the way down to the main road in Llavorsí.

I rode on to Esterri d’Àneu, now feeling a bit weird sitting down on the bike after such a long while on the footpegs, but I was about to stand up again. The road I was on lead to the Port de la Bonaigua, another famous pass, but I already knew this one and was looking for a more adventurous route, so I turned right towards Isil, a small village on a valley of the Nogera Pallaresa river, where the road ended. From there on, another dirt track started, following the river at first and then going up the mountain – it was the old mountain pass, the one used before the road across Port de la Bonaigua was built.

The track got worse (and more interesting) as it gained altitude and left the river behind, and by now I was very confident on the bike and especially on the new tires, which provided very good traction and control in these circumstances and which also worked very well on tarmac, at least for me – I like riding at a good pace, but I do not tend to scrap the footpegs in corners, so I was not missing road-biased tires.

The road levelled out after a while and I enjoyed a ride through thick pine forests until I came to the Refugi de Montgarri, which I left to my right. Shortly after I found some parked cars and a few families hiking, and then the forest opened and I rode up a gentle slope to find the top of the ski lifts that belonged to Baqueira, one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the country. From there, a tarmac road started that, again, was not unlike something found in the Alps, and I had a great time all the way down to Vielha.

By the time I got there what had been a sunny and warm day had quickly deteriorated and it was now cloudy and so cold that I had to stop and put on the inner layer on the jacket. What was more, there were rain clouds rolling in and it looked as if it was going to rain soon. I did not want to use the tent if it was raining, as I hate to pack it wet unless I am heading home the following day and can dry it when I get there, so I headed for the tunnel to spend the night in a mountain hut I knew on the other side which was accessible by bike.

It still was not raining yet when I got there, so I parked the bike by the river and walked up to the hut to see if they had bed available. They did, and the guard, being a biker himself, was keen to hear about my trip and allowed me to take the bike up the service road and park it behind the hut instead of leaving it in the car park by the river, which was a short walk down the hill.

I ordered a beer and sat down in the front terrace hoping the weather would hold long enough to allow me to finish it and plan the route for the following day.

Blocked tracks and abandoned iron mines

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Kilian

Day 1 – Saturday 26^th of July – Port de la Selva to Saillagouse (277km)

I had checked online a few places to camp for my first night and had settled on this campsite because it had very good reviews and it was supposed to be a nice, quiet place, contrary to my prejudices of all campsites near the beach being noisy tourist nests. Well, prejudiced I may be, but unfortunately I am usually right, and this time was no exception – the place was indeed full of tourists, it was noisy until well into the night, there were no areas for cooking or picnicking, the bar was way overpriced and the toilets and the showers seemed to have been built in the 70s and not refurbished ever since. Worst of all, I was charged 22,90€ for one person, one tent and one motorbike. When I think that I had stayed at a campsite in Finland for 15€ and I had free WiFi reception in my tent, full cooking facilities, the use of a sauna and of course the peace an quiet only found in civilized countries, I can only describe the price of the campsite in Port de la Selva as daylight robbery.

I had some breakfast and headed for the first border crossing of the day: Portbou, home of one of the two main international stations in Spain. Although it had been raining during the night, the skies were clear in the morning and the views great on the road along the coast to Portbou.

The international station and its yard are lodged in one of the many narrow valleys overlooking the coast, an impressive complex in such confined space. From the road leading away from the town and into France the trains can be seen manouvering in the station, loading and unloading the many freight containers that have to change trains because of the difference of gauge between Spain and the rest of Europe. There is also a single track that goes through a small warehouse some distance off the main buildings in the direction of the French side. It is there that the few trains with variable gauge boogies are adapted on the go so that they can travel non-stop from one country to the next. It is a seamless process that passengers on the train barely notice and a remarkable feat of engineering for those lucky few who have the chance to witness it next to the rails. Many years ago, when I was a kid, my father took me there and he talked an engineer into letting us go with him and see the whole process from an inspection pit under the train as it took place. It was quite an experience!

As I approached the last petrol station on the Spanish side, I remembered that it was a lot more expensive to fill up on the other side of the border, but I saw that I still had quite a lot of petrol left and I would be crossing back again soon, so I decide not to stop. On top of the pass there were some customs buildings, souvenir shops and a hotel, all long abandoned, standing on no-man’s land between the two countries as a silent reminder of a time when travelers had to stop and get their passports out before leaving the country.

The landscape quickly changed on the other side, the slopes of the hills by the sea all covered in grapevines from which the famous Banyuls sweet wine is made. The terrain is very steep and rocky, so it is impossible to use machines to harvest the grapes. Instead, it is done by hand, and the grapes are carried in wicker baskets down to the closest road or track where the trucks are waiting, or in the case of some vineyards which are only accessible by sea, down to little boats.

I went down to the village of Banyuls, and from there, leaving the main road along the coast, I started heading west across vineyards in the direction of the Coll de Banyuls, a little known pass between Portbou and La Jonquera. The road up the pass was paved even though the map said otherwise, and the ride up the Coll was great: 1^st and 2^nd gear only, no one else on the road, and uninterrupted views down the valley to the sea. There were no signs indicating where the border was, and on the other side the road descended more gently, allowing for faster progress (and more fun!) as I got more and more used to the new tires.

I got to the village of Espolla and while looking for the gravel road I wanted to take to Cantallops I quickly found myself on the other side of the village. I turned around and asked a man for directions, he told me that I had to cross the center to take a small track and gave me directions that went something like left-right-left-right-left-left-up-left-down or something like that. Way too complex for such a small village! I was quickly lost inside the village and had to ask again. After getting directions again and having a very nice old man walk me to the beginning of the track, I left the village on a narrow country lane that soon turned into an unpaved road. Great! First offroading of the day.

It was fun until it turned into the kind of mix of rocks and sand I would not dream of driving and SUV through. Thinking it might be a bit too much for my V-Strom, but not wanting to turn back, I slowly made my way through only to find mud and puddles from the rain the night before a bit further down the track. I reminded myself that you are supposed to lean back and go fast through it, and there was no problem. Much better than the last time I had put the bike through mud on road tires; these new ones were starting to prove to be right choice.

Shortly afterwards the track turned into tarmac and soon I was out on a road, but disappointingly not the one I wanted… the track had taken me a bit further south than I was expecting and was clearly not the one I had been planning to take according to the map.

Never mind, back on the main road and heading north to the next crossing: La Jonquera.

I stopped for petrol before France this time and also to try and find a place to buy a Swiss knife (I had forgotten mine), which gave me a chance to appreciate what decadent and depressing places border towns are – basically a cluster of brothels, liquor shops, sex shops, souvenir shops, various outlets and shady import-export businesses. Not a place to linger in.

Right after the border there was the French counterpart of La Jonquera, Le Perthus, a small town through which the national route cuts, making it a permanently congested place. Hundreds of cheap, tacky shops line the main street where there is no place to try and park a car, but still people try to stop and do some window shopping, which turns the place into a 24/7 traffic jam.

In stark contrast to Le Perthus, there is a small road that starts to the right just outside the town, the D71, and takes you on a circular tour through a thick forest. I was on my own again, and I quickly forgot the hellish traffic I had left behind.

The D71 took me back to Le Perthus a while later, and I headed up the Fort de Bellegarde, an old border fort that overlooks the town that I wanted to see before heading for a couple more border crossings on what seemed to be dirt roads in the forest.

There was supposed to be a road leading there from the fort, the D13C, but I did not manage to find it and the people I asked in Le Perthus told me to go further down the main national route. I did, but the only road that seemed to go in that direction had restricted access only for neighbours. I lost more than two hours driving through small neighbourhoods in the forest trying to find the track that led across the border, but kept running against blocked routes, private land signs and cul-de-sacs. Hot, sweaty and hungry, I finally found myself riding down on the French side in the D13F road, not exactly the one I wanted, but it took me to Ceret, which was my next destination after the two crossings I could not do. That bit of road turned out to be quite nice, and I found a quiet spot to rest for a while and have a late lunch. Even so, I was frustrated not to find the crossings, and determined to try again sometime in the future from the Catalan side, which seemed to be easier at least on the map.

After Ceret I joined the D115, the main road leading up to Prats de Mollo, and there were a few other crossings I wanted to do in that area, mostly on dirt roads, two on a loop route to the left of the D115, starting from Saint-Laurent-de-Cerdans and two more in Coll d’Ares, but that meant a detour, since my route continued north around the east face of the Canigou to meet the next big valley and the N116 going to Puigcerdà. I had wasted a lot of time trying to find that D13C, so I decided to leave those dirt roads for another occasion (after all, they are only a couple of hours from home) and took the D44 and D43 up to the Col de la Descargue.

The road does not connect to anywhere else, so there was virtually no traffic. It was mid afternoon, the temperature had started to drop, and there were strands of ghostly fog slowly floating down the mountain making the place look a lot more remote than it really was. The effect was further compounded when I came across the abandoned site of what seemed to be some kind of mines. There was abandoned earth-moving equipment and some warehouses in ruins; a few corners further up the road I found some more empty buildings that back home I discovered belonged to iron mines. I pulled over to take a few pictures and while I was exploring one of the buildings that contained the remains of a workshop for the trucks that had once worked on the mine, I saw what appeared to be an inspection pit. I was looking at all the rubble and dirt that had accumulated at the bottom when I thought that some of it looked a bit… organic. I tilted my head to one side to get a better look and realised what I was seeing upside down: the half rotten carcass of a dead horse. At first I thought the poor thing had wandered into the workshop, fallen into the pit and been unable to get out again, but then I saw that there were stairs at the other end and realised that someone must have killed the horse and dumped it there. I felt a chill down my spine thinking what kind of person would take a horse to a derelict mine to kill it and what other things might have happened between the walls of such an isolated place and did not feel like taking any more pictures. I got on the bike and rode to the end of the road just to find another creepy place.

The tarmac ended right in front of a building several storeys high on the side of the mountain that looked to have been a kind of hotel at some point in the past, but which had in fact been accommodation for the mine workers. It was abandoned except for a small part at the end of it, which housed a mountain hut. As I rode past the hut to find that the road ended right there, I saw a few people sitting at a terrace overlooking the road, and it may have been the combination of the fog, the looks of the building, seeing that dead horse, and the look on those people’s faces (who may just have been surprised to see a motorbike turn up there) but it looked like the last place on Earth I wanted to be, so I turned around and headed back down the road before I ended up being company for the horse.

Two corners down from the building the only other way I could go except back down the road I had come was another dirt track, which according to the map and the route I had planned on the GPS, was the one I wanted to take to get to the N116. The track was in very good condition and I indulged my Long Way Round fantasies riding quite fast on the footpegs. Halfway before reaching tarmac again, there was an old watchtower which must have been a great point to admire the views, but it was foggy, so I did not linger there for long.

Right around the tower there was an electrified cattle fence, and instead the usual gate with a rubber handle that you can open, cross, and close again, there was some kind of electrified pole with a spring mounted across the road and a sign saying that you were supposed to drive through and push it with your car. Well, that’s great if you have a car, but what about a motorbike? That thing was going to touch my leg no matter how carefully or fast I rode through. In the end I decided to push the bike through from the side opposite where the pole would touch it, just in case.

The rest of the track was also in very good condition despite the damp from the fog, and shortly after I reached the N116 and left the fog behind. The rest of the afternoon was just great – the road up to Mont Louis is brilliant, the landscape beautiful and on clear days, you can see all the way down to the sea from the top of the valley.

By late afternoon I reached Saillagouse and saw a sign pointing to a campsite. I checked in and was glad to see that it was the complete opposite of the campsite in Port de la Selva. Lush green grass to put my tent on, brand new toilet and shower blocks, they even had hairdryers and an iron in the laundry, it was dead quiet at night and considerably cheaper too. To top it all, the terrace where I put my tent up face southwest and I had a wonderful view of the sunset while I prepared some soup sitting on the panniers.

A late start

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Kilian

Day 0 – Friday 25^th of July – Mollet del Vallès to Port de la Selva (203km)

I had to work on Friday (last day!) and I was expecting to be able to get out quite early and start the route from the school instead of leaving on Saturday. I wanted to ride the Pyrenees from east to west in the strict sense of the word, and that meant starting from the easternmost point: El Cap de Creus.

I did not have as many days as I wanted, as my sister, who is living in Puerto Rico for a couple of years, was coming back on Wednesday night and we were to meet in Benasque – she had just turned 30 and she wanted to get together with me and my parents and climb a peak we had all climbed together when she was a toddler. I had worked out a route and a schedule, and if I wanted to have enough margin to make changes en route and take it easy enough to enjoy the views, I had to set off from El Cap de Creus on Saturday morning.

We were doing summer courses at my school that month, which meant working mornings only, and in my case, finishing class at 12:30 on Fridays. It looked like the perfect plan: pack everything on Thursday, ride to work in full gear, get changed there, do three hours of class and presto! I would be on holiday. Put on the gear again and by early afternoon I could be already camped somewhere near the beach and I would even have time to go for a swim.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. I also work as a Speaking examiner for Cambridge, and even though my students were taking the FCE at the school that same Friday, I was not supposed to examine them. However, since they were short of examiners and apparently it was OK for me to examine at my own centre if certain criteria were met, I was told that I would be examining… until 17:30.

All was not lost, though, there would be no swimming in the sea, but I still had time to get there before sunset, so on Thursday night I stayed up until late to pack all my stuff.

When I got up to work on Friday, it was pouring down with rain. Great. I put on my rain suit, and hoping the weather would improve by mid-afternoon, I headed for the school.

A few days earlier I had swapped my almost new Bridgestone Battlewings for a pair of Mitas E-07 with a view of maybe doing some forest roads on this trip. I had used Heidenaus K60 before and was very pleased with the results, but I wanted to test something new. These Mitas were really cheap, and if they worked well they could be a real bargain for my bike. I had read a fair share of positive opinions, but some people were not happy with their performance in the wet, and my mechanic was less than thrilled about them when they were delivered to his shop to be out on my bike.

I had been using them to commute to work for a few days and they seemed to be ok, but today was the first ride in the rain. The streets in Barcelona were flooded, and the bike felt a bit more nervous than usual. Then I got to a changing set of traffic lights and braked a bit harder than usual: the ABS came on very early on the back wheel and I was less than impressed with the breaking distance… Not a good strart for the tires, then. I would have to be extra careful in the wet.

Fortunately, by the time I had finished the exams it had stopped raining and the roads had even had time to dry up a bit, which was encouraging given how my first experience in rain with the new tires went.

Not wanting to pay the motorway, I took the same route I had taken a year earlier to start the big trip: heading for Vic on the C-17 and then east on the C-37, the A-26 and then the N-260. Nice roads, not a cent spent on tolls.

By the time I was near Figueres, I saw black clouds down the road and a rainbow, and I could clearly see a curtain of rain ahead. I should have stopped and put on the rain suit, but I figured my route went just along the edge of the rain and it was clear beyond, so I took the risk. Sure enough, in a few minutes it was pissing down on me. I ground my teeth an pushed on, as it was only a summer shower, hoping it would be over quick. It stopped a bit further down the road and by the time I reached Roses I was almost dry again.

I always say that the Costa Brava is a beautiful place, and it is, but riding into Roses I could not help but think of all the damage we have done to it in pursuit of the easy money tourists bring. I rode quickly past blocks of apartments, wine supermarkets, casinos and worse and took a beautiful winding road that quickly made me forget all that tackiness.

The road from Roses to Cadaqués is a glorious string of bends and twists that first goes up the hills, affording great views over the Golf de Roses and then drops towards the coast again in a succession of tight hairpins. My only complaint is that the two towns it connects are very much on the beaten track, and there is quite a lot of traffic for such a small road, somehow ruining an otherwise great riding experience. Fortunately, most drivers were considerate enough to slow down and let me pass then there was a bit of space.

From Cadaqués an even smaller road made its way through a fascinating landscape of jagged rocks with the occasional glimpse of the sea. It was late afternoon, the sky was cloudy and the sun was low enough to shine below the cloud layer, giving the whole place an otherworldly look. Riding past the place where Salvador Dalí had his house, it is easy to imagine how this landscape inspired his work.

The road ended at the lighthouse that marks the easternmost point of the Pyrenees, and I was happy to see that at that time of the day there were very few cars left at the car park, as it seemed that during the day they line up the road in the hundreds. Standing in front of the lighthouse, I took the picture that marked the real beginning of the journey. In five days I planned to be in front of another lighthouse at the other end of the Pyrenees.

The weather had improved quite a bit, but there were dark clouds coming again and it was dusk, so I hurried to a campsite nearby before it started raining again. I checked in quickly and just as I finished putting up the tent, the rain came back.

I got changed in the tent and then ran to the bar under the pouring rain to sit down with a cold beer and plan the route for the following day.

Trans Pyrenees route – 6 days of the best mountain passes

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Kilian

Intro

This was something that I wanted to do long before the trip that started this blog, but I never really found the time and then the big trip took up all my time in planning and then riding. Back from it, a year went by with lots of daily riding and the odd weekend trip, but there was not long trip in sight. I had always assumed that the bike might not last much longer after such a demanding experience, and that replacing it would mean saving up, so there were no big trips planned for the 2014 summer.

However come the summer the bike was well over 60,000 miles and still working like a dream, and seeing that I had a week to myself before my girlfriend took her holidays and we went for a longer trip together (more on that later), I decide to blow the dust off this ride.

My original idea had been to ride west along the southern side of the Catalan Pyrenees (mostly on the N-260) up to La Vall d’Aran and then back east on the French side, which would only have taken a long weekend or four days, but now I wanted something longer and with more interesting routes, so I got a set of three maps from Michelin Zoom series which covered the whole of the mountain range in good detail and set about planning a route that would take me across as many mountain passes as possible.

Stroming The World

Adventure riding

Monthly Archives: October 2014